No matter how nuanced current superhero comics may be, to the general public they are still fairly simple. Superheroes are the good guys, supervillians are the bad guys, and it’s easy to see who is who. That’s why kids like to dress up as superheroes on Halloween — and why should they have all the fun?
An Egyptian-born activist was arrested yesterday for spray-painting subway billboards that call enemies of Israel “savages” — amid a wave of vandalism unleashed on the inflammatory ads, which have divided the city.
Mona Eltahawy, a self-described “liberal Muslim,” strolled up to one of the signs at the crowded 1/2/3 train mezzanine at the Times Square station and sprayed pink paint on the ads.
A source of delicious egg creams and daily newspapers since at least the 1930s, an unassuming shop at the corner of St. Marks Place and 2nd Avenue was renamed Gem Spa in 1957 and swiftly transformed into a meeting ground for generations of downtown artists, musicians, poets, and activists.
Sometimes justice requires a little imagination. On Saturday, when
much of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York was loudly
denouncing police violence against minorities and protesters, a small
group of environmentalists dreamed up a way to get the police to focus
on the crimes of the 1 percent, to the point of arresting five corporate
suits on United Nations property.
The US artist Nan Goldin has staged her first public protest since she launched her activist group PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), shaming members of the Sackler family who have profited from the sale of Oxycontin and institutions that have accepted their philanthropy.
"This project took aim at a public relations campaign produced by The Union Square Partnership, a local Business Improvement District (BID) attempting to privatize the north end of NYC’s Union Square park and install a high-end celebrity chef restaurant. They hosted historical walking tours of the park for decision-makers, as a means of getting buy-in for their development initiative.
Now that the dust has settled from the Met Gala, with all the excitement over Kylie Jenner’s bathroom selfie and Rihanna’s body-swallowing Comme des Garçons florals, it is worth pausing to consider a red carpet moment most people missed: the entrance of Joe Gebbia, co-founder and chief product officer of Airbnb, with Yeonmi Park, a North Korean refugee and international refugee activist.
"This project was launched in the wake of the police shooting of 16-year old Brooklyn resident Kimani Gray. Blue NYPD barricades left in piles around the city were spray-painted with the names of people killed by police, then re-deployed in public space."
Trade School is a self-organised, alternative learning space that runs on barter. It was started in 2010 in New York’s Lower East Side by Rich Watts, Louise Ma, and Caroline Woolard of OurGoods.org, a creative barter network. Over 800 students participated in 76 single-session classes during 35 days. Anyone can teach a class, and students sign up by agreeing to meet the barter requests of teachers.
Inspired by the Laughing Farmers of Karnataka, protesters in New York make Carlos Slim's visit to New York uncomfortable while he appears on a "Live From NYPL" program. This excellent video summarizes the action.
Huffington Post put together a digital, interactive map of some of the so-called best and brightest street art collections. Street art is important because it allows artists, usually from the community where the street art is taking place, to interact with the community and bring color/brightness to the environment.
In 1991, Gonzalez-Torres lost his partner Ross to AIDS (the artist would face the same fate in 1996). In a tragic and highly personal tribute to Ross, Gonzalez-Torres took a picture of his still-indented empty bed - an image of universal intimacy and loss - and placed it on two dozen commercial billboard spaces throughout New York.
"Brooke Shields is one of 200 famous faces that the artist Jonathan Horowitz identifies as vegetarian in head shots he has hung on the white-tile walls of a former meat locker in the south Village. Horowitz, 44, swore off meat at the age of 12, after his parents took him to a bullfight on a vacation in Mexico.
The Improv Everywhere team created separate walking lanes for tourists and New Yorkers on a Fifth Avenue sidewalk. Department of Transportation “employees” were on hand to enforce the new rules and ask pedestrians for their feedback on the initiative. Enjoy the video first and then go behind-the-scenes with the photos and report below.
In order to raise awareness about the global issue of arranged child marriages, 21-year-old YouTube star Coby Persin decided to push the envelope by asking a 12-year-old 'bride' to pose with a 65-year-old 'groom' in the middle of Times Square. Child marriage is not only legal in 91 countries around the world, but even continues to be legal in the United States - with some having a cut off as low as 12 years of age.
The artist has assembled a set of 300 installations around New York City, based around the concept of fences and borders, to showcase the ‘narrow-minded’ attempts used to ‘create some kind of hatred between people’
Project Catalyst specializes in designing culturally rich entertainment experiences that re-imagine the empowering possibilities of cinema and media from a multicultural perspective. Project Catalyst exemplifies the efficacy and essential value of art and cinema at the intersections of social justice and the modern technologies of everyday life.
It may have been a while since you’ve set foot in an internet cafe, but a pop-up one on the Lower East Side offering free tea on top of free wifi is well worth a visit for a lesson in online freedoms.
Xu Bing, the internationally acclaimed Chinese artist, has brought his “Phoenix” installation to the majestic nave of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The two phoenixes, both Feng, the male, and Huang, the female, faced the decoratively carved bronze doors of the Cathedral, as if poised to take flight in the middle of the night.
The Comfort Illusion is a solo aural performance that highlights the effects our everyday actions can have on the environment. Through mixed media storytelling using sound and lighting, Adams narrates the life of "The Overkiller" a fictional villian who negatively impacts the earth and the lives of the people around him through smaller everyday decisions. This character constantly prioritizes convenience over care and responsibility (ie.
Kheris Rogers, an 11-year-old entrepreneur from Los Angeles, has made history at New York Fashion Week as the youngest fashion designer ever to present. Kheris became an internet sensation earlier this year after her sister posted photos of her promoting her unapologetic Flexin' in My Complexion apparel line.
Sing for Hope is bringing its renowned Sing for Hope Pianos back to the streets of New York City this summer. From June 5-25, as a celebration of the work Sing for Hope does in communities year-round, 60 Sing for Hope Pianos will be placed in parks and public spaces in high traffic locations across all five boroughs in New York for anyone and everyone to play.
Plants growing through urban cracks and concrete remind us of the power of nature. Whether its a tree or a blade of grass pushing its way through cement, an underlying chaos( or natural order) lives just beneath the surface of physical and mental organizational structures created by man.
On a freezing Friday in January, Khmer-American artist Kat Eng sits in front of retail giant H&M’s Time Square store working on a manual sewing machine. For eight hours, Eng stitches together U.S. dollar bills while wearing a surgical mask and bloodstained shirt. Her performance “</3 Less Than Three” protests the way fast fashion and consumer culture creates oppressive conditions for Khmer workers.